


In Which There Is A Lot Of Food

by hotchocolatedictator



Series: The Doctor learns about Jewish festivals [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Food, Gen, Hanukkah, Judaism, Lots of Food, it's Hanukkah there has to be food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28049181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotchocolatedictator/pseuds/hotchocolatedictator
Summary: It's Hanukkah!
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Series: The Doctor learns about Jewish festivals [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054637
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	In Which There Is A Lot Of Food

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I keep talking about food. It's Hanukkah. I have to.

The next time Donna visited her family, she returned to the TARDIS clutching a small cardboard box. The Doctor, after several hundred years of travelling with humans, didn’t ask - whatever it was, he was sure someone else had brought something weirder once. And as it wasn’t a particularly exciting box, he forgot all about it.

‘Hanukkah starts next week,’ Donna announced one night, without any prompting.

Luckily enough, the Doctor had done some reading up after Yom Kippur, as a bit of a refresher, and so he was quite confident when he asked, ‘Have you got a Hanukkiah?’

Donna nodded. ‘And candles too. Two boxes, just in case.’

‘Do you do presents?’

‘If you want to buy me presents, spaceman, I’m not going to object.’

* * *

On the first night of Hanukkah, the Doctor wasn’t entirely sure what to do. He was wearing a kippah again (it had taken him nine hair grips to get it to stay on his head), watching Donna place a candle in the first branch of the Hanukkiah. He’d been excited to see all the different coloured candles in the box, and had chosen a blue one for the first night. Donna had given in good-naturedly, taking out a white one for the shamash.

He watched quietly as Donna lit the shamash and recited three prayers, before using the shamash to light the other candle. He listened as she sang, softly and uncertainly in the silence of the room, memorising the words and the tune and storing them away for the next night. Finally Donna fell quiet, and the two of them stood staring at the flickering flames.

‘Normally you put the Hanukkiah in the window,’ Donna said at last, ‘but seeing as you don’t have any, here will do.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Now what?’

‘Now?’ Donna grinned. ‘How do you feel about latkes?’

* * *

Latkes, it turned out, were potatoes and onions, grated and fried to a perfect golden-brown. Donna drowned hers in vinegar and explained the story of Hanukkah as she ate.

‘So you know about the temple, right?’ She began, barely pausing long enough for the Doctor to nod, ‘The Greeks came and smashed it up, basically. Tried to convert everyone. And the Jews weren’t really happy about it. So this family, the Maccabees, they led an uprising against the Greeks, and even though there were loads more Greeks than Jews, they still won. The first thing they wanted to do was to relight the Ne’er Tamid - the Everlasting Light. But the Greeks had ruined the oil, by putting pig’s blood in it and all that. In the end they could only find enough oil for one day, and it would take eight days to get more oil. But, and this is the miracle, the oil managed to last eight days. That’s why we eat all this greasy food.’

The Doctor swallowed the last of his latke - less vinegary than Donna’s - and said, ‘You know, I think I might have once met someone who was involved in that. Who was the Greek leader?’

‘Antiochus,’ Donna answered, before grinning cheekily, ‘Antiochus and his oversized tochus.’

‘Now you mention it, he did have a rather large backside…’

* * *

On the second night of Hanukkah, the Doctor sang along with Donna as she recited Hanerot Halalu and Maoz Tzur, remembering the words from the night before. 

Afterwards, they sat across the table from each other, Hanukkiah shining brightly next to them, and ate their way through a box of jam doughnuts.

‘I dare you,’ Donna announced, ‘to eat a whole doughnut without licking your lips.’

‘Darers go first,’ the Doctor replied.

‘At the same time?’

They each took a fresh doughnut, and grinned.

‘Three…’

‘Two…’

‘One…’

‘Go!’

The Doctor could feel the powdery sugar that coated the doughnut sticking to his lips, and there was a bit of jam trying to make its escape. Still, he didn’t lick his lips, determined to win.

‘Done!’ Donna exclaimed, swallowing the last bite.

The Doctor groaned and mumbled something unintelligible, his mouth still full.

Donna glanced at the box of doughnuts, still mostly full. 

‘Best of three?’

* * *

On the third night of Hanukkah, the candles were red, yellow and orange, with a white shamash. The Doctor and Donna sang loudly, and Donna let the Doctor light one of the candles (‘Only one?’ ‘I don’t trust you with a flame.’ ‘I’m the Doctor! The Oncoming Storm! I’ve-’ ‘Still don’t trust you with a flame.’).

The Doctor and Donna exchanged presents for the first time. The Doctor gave Donna a box carved with intricate patterns and an iridescent exterior.

‘If you tap it like  _ this,  _ a piece pops out here, see? And then if you press on that side, this bit will slide back, but if you press the other side it’ll slide the other way, so you get this compartment instead.’

‘So it’s a bit like a magic box, then?’

‘Yeah, but a really, really good one.’

The Doctor received a woolly hat, with a bobble on the top.

‘So your hair doesn’t freeze,’ Donna said, by way of explanation, ‘Though with that much gel it probably wouldn’t look that different.’

It wasn’t cold in the TARDIS, but the Doctor put it on anyway.

* * *

On the fourth night of Hanukkah, Donna taught the Doctor to play dreidel.

‘So we each start with ten chocolate coins, and the rest of them go in the middle. The dreidel has four sides, and there’s a letter on each side - nun, hay, gimel and shin. Stands for ‘nes gadol haya sham’ - a great miracle happened there. You spin the dreidel and depending on what letter you get you do something different.’

She spun the dreidel to demonstrate, with it landing on a hay.

‘How I always remembered it is gimel gets all, hay takes half, shin puts half in, and nun does nothing. Pretty self explanatory. Gimel you get all the ones in the middle, hay you get half the ones in the middle, shin you put half your coins in, and nun does nothing.’

‘What if there’s no coins in the middle and you get a gimel?’

‘Tough luck. The aim is to get all the coins. Ready?’

As it turned out, dreidel was harder than it looked. After the first heap of coins had vanished, there was a lot of spinning gimels only to find that there weren’t any coins to take. Eventually, however, Donna emerged victorious with a stack of chocolate.

‘Spare a coin for an old friend?’ The Doctor asked with a grin, already knowing the answer.

‘Not a chance, spaceman. Get your own chocolate.’

* * *

On the fifth night of Hanukkah, the Doctor got Donna socks, as advised by her granddad.

Donna got the Doctor socks.

‘Did Gramps tell you to get socks?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, it’s a family tradition. We always get socks for Hanukkah.’

‘Why socks?’

Donna shrugged. ‘I dunno. Useful, though.’

‘Fair point,’ the Doctor admitted, ‘and I do like this pattern.’

* * *

On the sixth night, Donna sang Hanukkah songs loudly and only slightly out of tune.

‘Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of clay, and when you’re dry and ready, dreidel I shall play. Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of ice, and when I tried to play you, it wasn’t very nice.’

‘Why would anyone make a dreidel out of ice?’ The Doctor couldn’t help but ask.

‘Dunno. Don’t have anything else to make one out of? I mainly sing it because it rhymes with nice, and it’s either that or rice.’

‘Could you make a dreidel out of rice?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Well, if it was mushy enough it might stick together. Wouldn’t spin very well, obviously, but I could work on that…’

‘Doctor, no!’

It was too late. He was already headed for the kitchen.

* * *

On the seventh night, Donna accidentally broke two candles putting them in the Hanukkiah and the Doctor finally understood why two boxes of candles was a good precaution, listening to Donna mutter curses not entirely under her breath.

‘They put exactly the right amount of candles for all eight nights of Hanukkah, see? But they haven’t got any spares if you break some. Which I always do. Actually, it’s amazing I haven’t broken any before this.’

The Doctor resolves to keep a stash of Hanukkah candles in the TARDIS at all times, just in case.

* * *

On the eighth night, the Doctor couldn’t help but be glad that they had to start a new box - they’d gotten down to the boring colours on the last one, and opening the fresh box meant he had the pick of any he wanted. He chose as many different colours as he could, only resorting to duplicates once he’d been through every colour of candle.

Once they’d lit the candles and said the blessings, Donna and the Doctor sat in silence for a while, staring at the flames.

‘That was a good Hanukkah,’ Donna said, eventually, ‘I mean, it technically isn’t over until tomorrow evening, but still. It was good.’

‘It was a lot more fun than Yom Kippur,’ the Doctor agreed.

There were a few more seconds of silence, before they looked at each other with matching grins.

‘You know, we still had a box of doughnuts left, didn’t we?’

‘And we hadn’t quite finished off the potatoes…’

‘And I’m sure I’ve got some more chocolate coins somewhere…’

They were out of their seats in a flash, dashing for the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
